


"The Power of Habit"

by farad



Series: Epistles [2]
Category: Magnificent Seven
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:38:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the Daybook prompt "Nathan/Rain, OW, she carries all her scars inside her"</p>
            </blockquote>





	"The Power of Habit"

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed, all mistakes my very own.

 

“ _Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise_ _wounds_ _and pain.”_

\- Cicero

 

_Dear Nathan,_

 

_I hope that the arrival of this letter did not alarm you too much. Mr. Fedder stopped in our village for several days to recover from traveling too long in the sun, and as he was headed toward your town, he said he would deliver this to you. All is well here, I am not writing to worry you._

 

_Instead, after much consideration, I thought I would tell you more about myself. I have thought long on what you told me that day weeks ago when you rode with me to my village. I enjoyed our talk, your memories of your childhood and your life, though I must say, I have dreamed of it and not always in good ways._

 

_As you know, I miss my father, very much. My mother, too, though I did not know her the way that you knew yours. My mother died at my birth, so that I never knew her. I knew of her, my father spoke of her often, as did many of the elders in the village. She was a good woman, a strong woman. Like you, she had escaped slavery._

 

_She and my father were slaves together in a place called Mississippi. My father told me often that it was a beautiful place, very green, full of trees and water and flowers, very different from where I have lived my life. He said that it was abundant with food of every kind – vegetables, fruits, chickens, cows, pigs – that one could reach out one's hand and find something to put in one's mouth._

 

_But he said that this Eden was filled with devils, ones that you well understand, white devils who took the food before you could eat, who forced you to work for them and to do the things that they wanted. Devils who beat and whipped others because of the color of their skin._

 

_My father and my mother wanted to marry, but one of the devils, the one who claimed my mother, refused to allow it. So my parents ran away. My father would tell me little about the actual flight, but I have heard from others how hard such an escape was. I have heard from you of the horrors of it, the fear of being caught, the punishment if you were - and then the problems of making a new life when you did, finally, reach freedom._

 

_That part, the last part, my father did speak of. He told me of trying to live in Philadelphia, a big city with many people but little work. He said that being free was good but that not being able to eat was not. There was little work for people who knew nothing but planting and harvesting. He tried to work in a factory, a place that he said was hot and dirty and dark, where men could barely breathe, where the work was as hard as it had been in the fields, and the pay even less._

 

_But he said what drove him from it was not his work, but my mother's. She was forced to take work in a white man's house, and there, she was treated much the same as she had been when in bondage. One night, she came home to my father with her clothes in disarray. I know this story will stir memories for you, as the story of your mother stirred this memory in me. I did not completely understand at the time what my father was telling me, but now, as I am older, I do._

 

_I also understand why my father felt the need to flee, not just from the cities, but from all the white devils, as he called them. When they decided to come west, they did so slowly. He said it took them a couple of years, moving as they could afford to move, working as they could find work – but it was always work that my father could do or work that my mother could do in a place with no closed doors. He said it was hard for them both, but that they had each other, and that they relied on each other. He said at night, as they lay together, they told each other stories of their own families, trying to remember the people they had loved and left behind._

 

_I am telling you this, Nathan, because I feel that kinship with you. We are the last of our families, but we keep them alive within us. I have never known Mississippi, or any place of that abundance. I have never known Philadelphia, or any place teeming with people. I have only known this place where I live now, with its sun and sand and with the struggle to find enough food for us all, and with worry of having enough water._

 

_But I also have not known the white devils, not the way that my father and mother did. Not the way that you have. When my father and mother found these people, the Seminole, they were welcomed. My father said that my mother wept with the joy of it, to be among people like them who did not look to own them or hurt them but to welcome them and to appreciate what they could do as equals._

 

_My parents tried to protect me – to protect all of us in the village – from the white devils. We were told that white men were always dangerous, that they were only interested in what they could take from us. You saw that, in what my father and the elders did before you and the others came to town, sending us into the caves in the hills for protection._

 

_But you and your friends have proven that not all white men are devils. And you choose to live among them, be friends with them. When I came to visit you, I came not just to learn of you, Nathan, but to learn of them. And what I saw has made me think, long and very hard, about my life and my beliefs.  That you all stood behind Josiah, knowing he was innocent because of the man that he was, that gave me great pause.  That he was innocent showed that not all white men are devils._

 

_I understand that it is difficult for you to give up those friendships, to choose to live among us, isolated from the world for the sake of safety. You have worked hard to be yourself, to be one of us, in the company of devils. But you have found men who are not devils and you have found a place that you like, a place where you feel comfortable. I cannot take you from that, nor can I make you choose. While I am not certain that I can fit there, I am willing to try._

 

_I do not say this to force you into any sort of decision, but to give you more to think about, to let you know me better. We can discuss it when you visit next, which I hope will be soon. And know that your friends will be welcome also._

 

_With great affection,_

 

_Rain_


End file.
